Nightmares
by CasiNight
Summary: Danny and Steve are caught in an explosion. I can't really tell you any more without spoiling the story. DANNY WHUMP! EMOTIONAL STEVE WHUMP! NOT A DEATH FIC! Not slash, but BROMANCE! Oneshot.


**Sorry for the super long wait for another Hawaii Five-O story. I've been really overwhelmed with school work, but I wrote this while taking a study break. Now, I know that I just did another story with a similar, "DANNY'S DEAD!" type of thing, but this one has been rolling around in my head and refusing to leave until I wrote it so here we go! **

**Warnings: This story is really sad! No, it's not a death fic, but it made me cry, so consider yourself warned. Also, LOTS OF BROMANCE! But I'm assuming that everyone's OK with that. :)**

**Disclaimer: I do not own Hawaii Five-O or it's characters, because if I did . . . there would be some serious changes. :)**

**Enjoy!**

* * *

Steve crouched down behind his crate, hearing the pings and thuds of bullets as they struck objects around him. He looked across the aisle at his partner and friend, Danny Williams, who was also crouched down behind a crate.

"Remind me again why we didn't wait for backup?" Danny asked, wincing as a bullet struck the wood of the side of his crate.

Steve smiled, enjoying the banter in such a heavy situation. To keep it up, though, he shot back, "We did, Daniel! Keep your head down!"

Danny watched as Steve sprang up, firing off a few rounds and then dove back. _Keep your head down, he says! how about he keeps his damn head down! _He fired a few shots and then sank back down, looking across the aisle just in time to see a man appear, but he wasn't holding a gun. Alarm bells sounded in Danny head and then he was running across the aisle, all fear of the gunmen gone, his gun raised and pointed at the criminal. Danny's eyes were fixed on what was in the man's hand. A grenade. "Grenade!" Danny shouted.

Steve looked up but couldn't react as Danny shoved him across the aisle behind the boxes. He turned around and saw Danny firing several shots, but he wasn't fast enough; the grenade dropped, the pin gone. "Danny!"

The grenade exploded, throwing both Danny and Steve across the space. Pain registered in Steve's head, but that wasn't what he was focused on. Danny was on lying on the ground, his back to Steve and his head hanging limply. "Danny!" Somewhere in the back of his mind, he realized that the shooting had stopped and shouts of "Clear!" were going up, but Danny was down from a grenade explosion.

Dropping to his knees next to the fallen man, Steve gently rolled Danny over into his arms and gasped. Danny's kevlar vest had been bombarded by wood and floor fragments when the explosion had occurred and the vest only managed to catch some of them. The rest of the fragments had made it into his chest, resulting in bloody gashes and wounds. His skin was pale and a pool of blood was gathering around him, coming from his chest, head, and mouth. Each breath was rattle as he choked on the fluid in his lungs. "St-" A coughing fit erupted as Steve tore floundered for how to help. IF he removed the vest, the bleeding could increase and Danny would bleed out in a matter of seconds, but there was already so much damage, he didn't want to press down and make it worse. His head was bleeding and his eyes were pleading, pained tears escaping the sides.

"Oh God . . . Danno. No. Just hang on. HELP! OFFICER DOWN! I NEED AN AMBULANCE! HELP!" Tears were running out of Steve's eye's too and this all seemed eerily familiar. From when, he couldn't place and focusing on that would mean taking attention away from Danny. "Danno, just hold on, ok? Just hold on. Help's coming."

Steve watched the light slowly go out of Danny's eyes and his heart constricted. "No, Danno. Please. Don't leave me. Please. You can't leave me. You're my brother. Please."

Danny's eyes never left Steve's as they slowly closed, his breathing ceasing and his heart stopping. Steve searched his face for any sign of life, but he knew. He'd seen enough people die. But he couldn't believe that Danny was now one of them. "Danny . . . Please. Oh God, nnnnoooooo. Please no." A sob broke his voice and his heart, causing him to clutch his dead partner to his chest, tears running down his face. He place his forehead against Danny's and cried, shaking and clutching his partner's body. He vaguely heard the paramedics arrived, but they didn't come any closer seeing from where they were that there was nothing they could do. He hear Kono arrive and begin to cry softly. _Danny. Why, God? Why, couldn't it have been me? Why? Please, give him back. Take me instead. Please . . . Please . . ._

* * *

Steve bolted awake, searching his surroundings and seeing the hospital. Confusion took over momentarily until the image of Danny lying dead assaulted his with all the force of a freight train. "Danny . . ." He sobbed, burying his face in his hands for a moment, before ripping out his IV and stumbling out of the bed. He didn't make it far. His knees gave out and he fell to the floor, pulling his knees up to his chin as the pain and loss in his chest took over once more. He stayed like that for several minutes until Chin and Kono came back in. They talked him into getting back on the bed, but after that, they're voices faded out and he simply began to stare at the wall. He'd heard of this happening to soldiers before, simply going unresponsive after a traumatic incident. He'd sworn up one wall and down the other when he heard of it that it would never happen to him, but at this point, he didn't care. Danny was dead.

* * *

Chin and Kono glanced at each other. The doctor had said that he was catatonic. It was usually caused by emotional trauma and was the minds way of hiding and protecting itself from further damage. They had no idea what that trauma could be, but they knew that there was only a small group of people that could do it. So they watched as one of those people limped into the room.

* * *

Steve sat on the edge of his hospital bed, his back facing the door as he stared on the wall. Suddenly, a pair of familiar blue eyes and a shaggy head of usually pristine blonde hair filled his vision. Slowly returning he looked the man up and down, seeing the sweat pants, t-shirt, and bandage wrapped limbs. All tell tale signs that the man had been in the hospital because of some incident, but they were also all tell tale signs that this man was alive. Danny was alive, and Danny was looking at his strangely.

Tilting his head, Danny smiled. "What's with the kicked puppy face?"

Tears came to Steve eyes as he sprang up and wrapped Danny in one of the tightest hugs he'd ever experienced. It was a little painful, because of his injuries, but he didn't mind. He wrapped his arms around his partners back as he felt Steve bury his face into Danny shoulder and he felt moisture on the same shoulder. "It's gonna be ok, babe. I'm right here. I've got you. We're ok. We're going to be ok." He put his face into his partners shirt, taking slow even breaths as he felt a few sobs go through Steve's back. "I've got you. It's ok. I've got you. I'm here. We're ok."

* * *

Chin and Kono each released the breaths they'd been holding. They hadn't been so sure that it was going to work, but here was the evidence that it had. They both smiled and slowly walked away from the touching scene, heading towards the café to get a cup of coffee.

* * *

Danny later explained to Steve that after he'd hit his head on the crate, he'd lost consciousness and missed the part where the paramedics said that he'd be ok with a few stitches and some rest. The doctor explained that Steve must have seen Danny right before he passed out and his mind had filled in the blanks. The scene had been a memory that his mind had called back and filled in with Danny instead of the man that had truly died in battle when Steve was a full time Navy SEAL. Things had only been made worse by the concussion he'd sustained, but that would subside with time.

The team was told that someone would have to stay with Steve for awhile because of the concussion, but Danny would have stayed anyways. The nightmare kept happening with startling detail and realism. Steve's concussed mind kept trying to file it as a memory instead of dream, meaning that he would wake up in the middle of the night. Every time he did, Danny was there, woken by the cries coming from Steve's room. He was always patient, always understanding, and always there. After little more than a week, the dream stopped and Steve was cleared for duty. Danny went back to his apartment and all they had was the true memory of the bond strengthening experience . . .

. . . and the occasional, very seldom to never, call to Danny in the middle of the night to make sure he was ok if the dream made an appearance.

* * *

**So, how was it? I certainly enjoyed writing it, even if there were tears pouring down my face. :)**

**Please let me know what you though with a review! I love them and they inspire me to keep posting! **

**Have a great week!**

**P.S. If anyone has any ideas or requests for what I should write next, feel free to tell me! I have some ideas, but they aren't fully formed and I'm still working on them, so I'd be happy to take requests! **

**Bbyyee! **


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